On cost, hand dryers win. Owners will only switch under pressure from users.

On hygiene, studies are mixed.

Some say hand dryers are as hygienic and some still say they are more hygienic, but according to a 2012 Mayo Clinic literature review, the best evidence says hand dryers are less hygienic.

How Do Paper Towels, Air Drying, Hand Dryers and Jet Dryers Compare?

Although paper and cloth towels were compared in the studies reviewed, they weren’t compared to each other, so until there is a head-to-head competition, paper and cloth appear to be equivalent, relative to the other major methods of drying your hands.

Despite its ongoing costs, paper has several advantages in drying your hands.

Paper removes bacteria better for several reasons:

It dries your hands faster (10-15 seconds)

The friction of the paper on your skin removes additional bacteria

It does not spread bacteria into the air.

By contrast, hand dryers:

Take longer to dry your hands (30-45 seconds).

Leave more bacteria on your hands than paper towels

Spread bacteria about three feet in the air around the dryer, including on the user’s clothes

If you rub your hands under the dryer, you spread the bacteria even more.

What about the new jet dryers:

Take about the same length of time to dry your hands as paper towels (10-15 seconds)

Leave more bacteria on your hands than paper towels

Spread bacteria in the air up to six feet around the dryer.

Why not just let your hands air dry:

Wet hands increase the growth of bacteria by providing a warm, moist place for them to multiply.

Aside from the cost and tidiness, is there any other reason public restrooms stopped using paper?

It turns out, kids in junior high like to wad up paper towels and clog toilets or wet wads of them and throw them on the ceiling to stick.

Why not just forget the whole thing and not wash your hands at all?

25 to 33% of Americans take this route. They just don’t bother to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

That’s why you see hooks on the back of restroom doors so you can open the door with your forearm instead of your hands, or trashbins by the door so you can use a paper towel to open the door and dispose of it on the way out.

This way, you can avoid touching door handles used by people who did not wash their hands.

Both polio and typhoid fever were spread by people who did not wash their hands after using the toilet.

Take two postage-stamp size towels, Dan, put them on top of each other and they will dry much better. Something about the interstitial space between layers and superabsorbency. A physicist once explained it to me.